Gerwalk
2010-02-17, 16:47
Is the greatest stuff ever. I've used it for so many different tennis repairs I thought I'd list them in case anyone here experiences these problems.
1. Attaching butt caps. There was a period where the butt caps on my Head racquets were pulling out of the pallets so I have a distrust of staples. Until recently I would pull the staples out and re-attach the butt cap using the five minute epoxy. Because it' designed to withstand impacts of 130+ MPH you'll never have to worry about them coming loose. Of course if you ever want to remove it you'll need a heat gun. When I was playing my old Toms Reach Machines I had leaded up the handle pretty good but still needed additional weight so I added tungsten powder to the epoxy mix and found that to be a good way to discreetly add weight to the racquet and secure the cap. You'll want to experiment weighing the amount of the epoxy and tungsten on a scale but once you do it can be very precise.
2. Fixing foam handles. Because the epoxy isn't corrosive it works great on foam handles. One of my racquets had pieces of the handle pulling away when I removed the grip so I filled in the holes with epoxy, scraped the excess the put clear postal tape over the handle and wrapped it tightly. This works great even if parts of the edges are missing. As long as you wrap the tape tight and without wrinkles the epoxy will fill in the holes at the perfect shape and the stuff is stronger than the original foam. The difference in weight is pretty much negligible. This may work on pallet type handles or Kneissl one piece handles but I've never tried. I tried spreading a very, very thin layer of epoxy over an entire foam handle to see if that would prevent further material from pulling away when taking the grip off and so far it has worked.
3. Loose material inside frame. It seems more and more racquets have the area between the head and the throat blocked. If you have a piece of loose material you can't get out through the grommets or out the bottom, a dab of epoxy will hold it in place forever and add very little weight. When I do that I try and get the piece as close to the throat as possible and also put the same amount of epoxy on the opposite side just for piece of mind. I doubt swinging the racquet I could tell which side has the epoxy but I think I've shown myself to be paranoid about minutia. I know this tip has been around forever but I feel the golf epoxy is by far the best way to secure the debris.
Hopefully someone finds this useful. If you have anything to add or if there is a way to do something better please feel free to share.
1. Attaching butt caps. There was a period where the butt caps on my Head racquets were pulling out of the pallets so I have a distrust of staples. Until recently I would pull the staples out and re-attach the butt cap using the five minute epoxy. Because it' designed to withstand impacts of 130+ MPH you'll never have to worry about them coming loose. Of course if you ever want to remove it you'll need a heat gun. When I was playing my old Toms Reach Machines I had leaded up the handle pretty good but still needed additional weight so I added tungsten powder to the epoxy mix and found that to be a good way to discreetly add weight to the racquet and secure the cap. You'll want to experiment weighing the amount of the epoxy and tungsten on a scale but once you do it can be very precise.
2. Fixing foam handles. Because the epoxy isn't corrosive it works great on foam handles. One of my racquets had pieces of the handle pulling away when I removed the grip so I filled in the holes with epoxy, scraped the excess the put clear postal tape over the handle and wrapped it tightly. This works great even if parts of the edges are missing. As long as you wrap the tape tight and without wrinkles the epoxy will fill in the holes at the perfect shape and the stuff is stronger than the original foam. The difference in weight is pretty much negligible. This may work on pallet type handles or Kneissl one piece handles but I've never tried. I tried spreading a very, very thin layer of epoxy over an entire foam handle to see if that would prevent further material from pulling away when taking the grip off and so far it has worked.
3. Loose material inside frame. It seems more and more racquets have the area between the head and the throat blocked. If you have a piece of loose material you can't get out through the grommets or out the bottom, a dab of epoxy will hold it in place forever and add very little weight. When I do that I try and get the piece as close to the throat as possible and also put the same amount of epoxy on the opposite side just for piece of mind. I doubt swinging the racquet I could tell which side has the epoxy but I think I've shown myself to be paranoid about minutia. I know this tip has been around forever but I feel the golf epoxy is by far the best way to secure the debris.
Hopefully someone finds this useful. If you have anything to add or if there is a way to do something better please feel free to share.